The Akron teenager's reaction summarily reflects what many residents and community leaders in the area first thought when they heard the idea. Weld County commissioners floated the proposal in June following a legislative session in the statehouse they said sabotaged the rural way of life.

The idea has since morphed into a discussion on whether commissioners should instead try to change representation in the Colorado General Assembly to give rural counties more say, a solution that many in the area say is more reasonable and preferable to secession.

The proposal has been the target of national news media, drawing criticism from the likes of the New York Times and garnering more than 9,000 likes on the initiative's Facebook page. Even Jimmy Kimmel couldn't resist commenting on Thursday.

"The only state that's a perfect rectangle, and they want to chop it into pieces," Kimmel quipped.

Across the 10 counties that initially expressed interest in the idea, residents' opinions vary from a few who would still like to secede to those who never thought it was a good idea.

Most, though, agree that urban and rural tensions are an issue in the Colorado Legislature and probably many other states.

I think we felt a little underappreciated in northeast Colorado," Kim Sellers, executive director of the Logan County Chamber of Commerce, said of lawmakers' actions this year.

Sellers said she does feel the past few years have worsened urban-rural tensions, especially with the coming of oil and gas development.

In this past legislative session, county commissioners said bills to further regulate the oil and gas industry and gun control and a renewable energy bill that officials said would be too costly for rural communities to implement were the straws that broke the camel's back, proving the Denver metro area legislators' disrespect regarding rural Colorado.

In a Democratically dominated state House and Senate and with a Democratic governor, Sellers said lawmakers seemed not to need to consult rural populations because they already had enough votes to get everything they wanted passed.

Bob Churchwell, city administrator for Burlington, which is in Kit Carson County, echoed Sellers' comments, saying rural counties felt lawmakers from the metro area heard and even said they understood where rural populations were coming from, but passed the legislation anyway because they had enough votes to do so.

"The problem is, it will take years and years to turn that tide now," Churchwell said.

He said the proposal to improve representation for rural counties in the state Legislature has merit, but he would still like to see the secession measure on November's ballot, more so to poll northeastern Colorado residents on whether they like the idea.

"I think that would send another message that says, 'You made decisions this year that were counterproductive to rural areas, just totally counterproductive,' " Churchwell said.

Still, others, such as Julia Prouty, 74, of Brush in Morgan County, said as she did yard work on Monday that secession "isn't even worth thinking about."

There is no doubt the state should appreciate its farmers, Prouty said. But at the same time, she said, "there's just no way to get everything exactly equal."

"United we stand, divided we fall," Prouty said. "That's my motto."

Larry Hanneman, also a resident of Brush, supports secession.

Hanneman said the situation has worsened over the years because Colorado has seen an influx of people move here from out of state. Most move to the metro area, and they have no sense of the bigger picture when it comes to rural needs and values, he said.

Kristy Yearwood, 30, of Brush, said the system at the statehouse isn't broken and doesn't need fixing.

"That's everywhere you go," Yearwood said of rural and urban differences. "It's been this way forever."

Orville Tonsing, the mayor of Holyoke in Phillips County, said secession would take too long.

"The legislature change, as far as I'm concerned, is an avenue to pursue," Tonsing said. He said the biggest issue for Holyoke was the renewable energy bill.

"We're getting run over. I think that is an overwhelming opinion," he said.

At a gathering in Akron with county commissioners from the interested 10 counties last week, Elliott Arthur of Morgan County said the representation issue stretches beyond the Colorado Legislature. He said most of Colorado's congressmen come from the Front Range, so Colorado's rural interests aren't included in federal discussions, either.

Rol Hudler, publisher of the Burlington Record, said there's no question that secession was never a good idea. He said the legislative proposal is interesting and representation does need to improve for rural counties.

"It's not really a burning issue," Hudler said.

If nothing else, Churchwell said, the secession proposal has already been beneficial for making the voices of rural Colorado heard.

"There comes a time when sort of a drastic action tends to be introduced to get the attention of folks," he said. "That's what's so wonderful about the United States. We can have those discussions. We can throw those things out on the table ... And eventually, the best ideas for the state of Colorado do float to the top."

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Secession Attempts

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Left-leaning Arizonans attempted to get a measure on the ballot in 2011 that would create a new bastion for liberals in the state. Though ultimately unsuccessful, the measure would have given voters a choice to decide whether to chip off Pima County from the rest of Arizona, creating another state: Baja Arizona.
It's an idea that's long been discussed, but The Tucson Sentinel reports that the most recent action was spurred by a desire for greater control over local issues and discontent with proceedings at the Phoenix statehouse.
"Every bill we've heard about here is either anti-abortion laws or anti-Mexican laws. These are not laws that are geared toward solving the real problems that we have," David Euchner, treasurer of Start Our State, the group behind the secession push, told the Arizona Daily Star.

Republican Maine State Rep. Henry Joy brought forth legislation in 2010 to divide northern and southern Maine into two autonomous states.
According to Joy, the move was necessary because of a proposal that would have turned millions of acres of northern woodland into a nature preserve, leading to the forced relocation of residents in the area. While that measure never passed, Joy was apparently not keen on the prospect of being removed from his home turf.
Joy's bill, which eventually failed, would have allowed the northern portion of the state to retain the name Maine, while the southern section would have been ordained Northern Massachusetts.
Joy proposed similar legislation in 2005, which also failed.

Democratic Utah State Rep. Neal Hendrickson submitted legislation in 2008 for the creation of a new state within Utah.
Hendrickson contended that "citizens in the more populated areas of northern Utah have many interests that stand in stark contrast to the interests of southern rural areas of the state, which feel they do not have the influence on state policymaking that citizens along the Wasatch Front enjoy."
His bill, which he said would "provide the citizens of what is presently southern Utah increased access to their state government," didn't pass.

When Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) signed onto a non-binding resolution claiming constitutional overreach of the federal government in 2009, some may have thought it was simply a symbolic display meant to show solidarity with a right-wing base disgruntled after the passage of President Barack Obama's stimulus package.
A day later, however, Perry took his rhetoric to another level, implying that Texas might secede if "Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people," by strapping his state with unsustainable taxation, spending and debt.

Rep. Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.), a Republican primary candidate for governor, piggy-backed off Texas Gov. Rick Perry's secession comments last year, telling Hotline on Call in a discussion about federal mandates in the health care law that states such as Tennessee might be "forced to consider separation from this government" depending on the outcome of the elections.
Wamp eventually lost the gubernatorial primary to Knoxville mayor and eventual winner Bill Haslam.

In 1998, Republican Maryland State Sen. Richard Colburn filed a bill that would have paved the way for the Eastern Shore of his state, as well as parts of Delaware and Virginia, to branch off into a separate entity called Delmarva.
Upset with regulations being forged in Annapolis and passed down to the Eastern Shore, Colburn encouraged Maryland's coastal residents to work toward a referendum that could get the measure on the ballot. It never passed muster.

Lawmakers across New York have long floated secession as a potential way to rectify what they see as imbalances in the burdens of taxes and other economic factors.
From local proposals to split New York City off into its own state, to pushes to turn upstate New York or Long Island into their own sovereign entities, all efforts at secession have failed.

The tiny Rhode Island enclave of Block Island made a stir in the 1980s when its residents pursued secession after being invaded by a population of moped-riding mainlanders.
The state senate and supreme court initially refused to allow the island's governing body to regulate the offending mopeds, which resulted in a successful vote to declare independence from the rest of Rhode Island. Massachusetts and Connecticut reportedly reached out during the process in the interest of annexing the island.
Weeks later, the Rhode Island legislature approved a bill giving Block Island regulatory control over mopeds on the island, which sufficiently appeased residents.

Republican West Virginia Delegate Larry Kump floated a proposal earlier this year to let a number of his state's panhandle counties secede and rejoin Virginia.
Citing economic concerns, Kump said his longshot legislation was an attempt to alleviate pressure brought on by the state's struggling manufacturing sector. It failed to gain support both among West Virginians and state legislators.